


Watching

by fineandwittie



Category: The Blacklist (TV)
Genre: Episode: s02e16 Tom Keen (No. 7), F/M, FIx It, Lizzington - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-26
Updated: 2015-03-26
Packaged: 2018-03-19 16:55:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,960
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3617283
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fineandwittie/pseuds/fineandwittie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>His expression closed in half-a-heartbeat.</p><p>“You’re in love with me.”</p><p>She stated it matter-of-factly. He didn’t deny it. But neither did he confirm it.</p><p>He simply sat. Watching her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Watching

Lizzie let Tom’s voice echo in her ear for a moment as she thought about Red’s expression. The utter devastation lurking in his eyes as he’d stared silently at her before walking away.

“Liz?”

She thought about his words. The conviction, the regret, the guilt that seemed so heavy, so real that she could almost reach out and touch it. She thought about the tears that had been in his eyes the night she saved his life. She thought about the hollowness of his face when she’d pushed him away after Luther Braxton’s doctor was done with her.

“Elizabeth? Are you there?”

She thought about all the times he’d saved her life. She remembered the Stewmaker and how calmly Red had disposed of him. She thought about the man that Red had shot in that underground headquarters. She remember the music box and the immense effort he’d expended to fix it, just for her.

“Liz, I can hear you breathing. What’s wrong?”

She hung up.

The crowd behind her had already swallowed Red and Dembe. She wouldn’t be able to find them. She had no idea where they were headed. 

She sat for a while, watching the crowd. Looking at Aimes’ daughter occasionally and thinking of Red. 

What had he taken from her that he still believed he needed to make amends after all this time? Is that what is was all about?

But, no. She didn’t really believe it was that simple.

Finally she stood and look down at her phone again. Two missed calls from Tom and one from Ressler. She’d call her partner back later. 

She shot off a quick text to Dembe, asking where she could meet Red.

He responded with directions to a cafe just off the Mall. 

 

******************

The cafe was a tiny hole in the wall, but their coffee was divine. She was instantly devoted and considered never drinking anyone else’s coffee every again, no matter how impractical that decision might be.

She sat at a table along the back wall in the corner. Her back was to one wall and Red’s would be to the other. No surprises that way.

As she waited, she contemplated how absurd such a seating choice would have been to her 18 months ago and to exactly what extent Cooper was right.

Because he was. She had changed. Drastically.

She wasn’t sure she had a problem with it.

Red appeared at her elbow, breaking her from her self-reflection. 

“Lizzie? You wished to see me?”

She smiled up at him blankly. “Yes.” She gestured that he should sit. “This coffee is amazing. I am absolutely in love with this place. I’m glad you picked it.”

He nodded, looking warily at her. She usually was not one for small talk, especially recently.

They sat in a tense silence for a moment or two.

“Tom called me.”

Red stiffened and his nostrils flared. “Oh?”

She nodded. “Yeah. He wanted to see how I was. I’d like be much better if he never contacted me again, but I’m not sure I have any control over that. Red? What was it that you think you took from me?”

Red blinked at the abrupt change of topic.

“Lizzie, I…”

He glanced around the cafe, until his gaze fell on Dembe a couple tables over.

He sighed. “Is this the best location for this?”

She grins at him. “Well, I won’t be tempted to stab you with a pen or break anything here. Or at least, I won’t give in to the temptation.”

He snorted and relaxed marginally. Which was more than she’d hoped when she’d decided to be give him a flippant answer.

“I…Before I answer that question, there is something I need to tell you that…I don’t think you’re going to…Well, the moment you decide that you never wish to see me again, merely say the word and I will be gone. For good. I promise you that.”

Her eyebrows crept toward her hairline. “Red, I very much doubt that you’ve done anything bad enough to warrant that.”

His smile was brittle. “I hired Tom Keen.”

She blinked. And waited…. “And?”

He stared at her. “Lizzie, I hired Tom. I placed him in your life.”

She shrugged. “I know. Tom told me months ago. On the boat. He wanted to…drive a wedge between us, I think. He always seemed…outrageously jealous of you. Thought that makes more sense, in hindsight, I suppose.” 

Red was staring at her, his mouth actually hanging open. His expression reminded her a little of the look he’d had on his face when he turned around, that night at the King Mansion, and seen her in the doorway with a gun in her hands. She knew he thought he was going to die, had resigned himself to it and whispered her name as his final word. 

“I…What?”

“Red, I know that you hired Tom. It’s not a big deal.”

“You aren’t angry?” He sounds incredulous, like he can’t quite wrap his head around this reality.

“I was, for a bit. At first, I didn’t believe him, but it makes sense. The trajectory of our relationship. For more than a year…maybe even two years, he hovered around the edges of my attention. I knew of him. I’d met him. He was one of those forgettable types. And then, one day, he was front and center, determined to get my attention. I think that must have been when Berlin flipped him. Before that he…was more like a ghost. Maybe a bodyguard? I think he sent you reports, but I doubt you read them. You wanted him there to keep and eye out. Make sure I was safe. And maybe…to find out what I wanted to do with my life. Convenient for you I picked the FBI. I assume that you’d never seen a picture of ‘Tom Keen’ when I got married? I don’t know when you realized he was your operative, but it seems like that was why your turned yourself in. You realized he’d been compromised. It makes sense. It’s even…sweet in a really twisted kind of way. You were keeping me safe.”

He nods dumbly. “Lizzie, I never wanted…”

She smiled softly at him. “Red, believe me. I know that. I do. But…tell me what you took? Because you weren’t talking about the harbormaster’s daughter earlier. You were talking about me.”

He swallowed thickly and turned to examine the crowd. “The night of the fire…No, before that. I was in the Navy. I was being fast tracked to Admiral. I was also part of a Black Ops team that essentially was the watchdog of the Organization. Which I realized later. I was in fact, the leader, the alpha of the team. The night of the fire, we’d been sent to eliminate a threat to national security. Or so I’d been told. In point of fact, the Organization wanted to destroy the Fulcrum. Your mother was one of theirs. She’d be placed with your father almost a decade before to find out what he knew. She’d finally realized the extent of it. She’d been in contact and we’d been sent in to take care of it. She was meant to be a yoga class and you were supposed to be sleeping over a friend’s house. I set the fire myself. We hoped to smoke your father out and take him alive. Instead, your mother came stumbling out, choking and calling your name. Your father was no where in sight. When I realized that you were still inside, I…I couldn’t let you die. You were an innocent. A child. My own daughter was only a few years older than you. 

I went into the house. Your mother followed close behind me and went upstairs to check the bedrooms. The stairs collapsed soon after. I don’t know if she was knocked out or if she died from smoke inhalation, but she never screamed, so I suspect that she didn’t burn to death. I found you in the closet at the back of the house. You didn’t want to leave it because your father had told you not to. I picked you up and tried to carry you out, but one of the support beams in the living room fell. I remember feeling the impact and the…fire on my back. I have…experienced all manner of pain, but nothing. Lizzie, nothing in this world is quite so excruciating as feeling your flesh burn from your body and your muscles begin to roast. I blacked out. I don’t know for how long, but you woke me. You didn’t leave me there, like you should have. You tried, instead, to tug me out from under the burning debris. You saved my life, because if you hadn’t still been inside, I’d likely have given in to the urge to pass out. We managed to get out, but everyone had gone. My team, your father…The fireman had arrive and an ambulance. They took us to the local hospital. I told them I was your father and that we lived in the house. That my wife was inside and likely dead. They rushed me to surgery and admitted you for smoke inhalation and that monstrous cut on your hand. I still have no idea how you received that. The next day, I called Sam, who the hospital believed was my brother, and he took you.”

She blinked at him and then stared.

“Are you trying to tell me that you’ve been atoning for two and a half decades for saving my life?!?” She hissed the words, because if she’d said them any louder she’d have screamed.

Red opened his mouth, but she cut him off.

“No. Raymond Reddington, that is insane. You literally saved me from a burning building at great personal risk, I’m betting you still carry the scars from that and burn scars are not fun, and you want forgiveness? For what exactly? Okay, you set the fire. So? it was your job and you didn’t know I was there. For killing my mother? You didn’t. It was her choice to come back into the house. And Red? She knew where I was. She and Father had been arguing loudly in the kitchen, but she knew I was inside that closet. I don’t know what was so important that she died for it, but it wasn’t me.”

Red’s eye were round.

“For running my father off? He doesn’t exactly sound like an upstanding individual. I might have been angry a year ago, but…Sam was my dad. No one else. He’ll always be my dad, no matter what. So this man who abandoned me to the fire? He isn’t my father. I don't care who he is. And you don’t need to be forgiven. But if that’s what you want? Fine. I forgive you. You can stop atoning for it.”

There were the tears again, glistening in his eyes, but not falling. Not even pooling on his lower lids. Just there.

“Lizzie…”

“Red…I heard you. That night at the King auction? When you thought you were going to die. I heard you…”

He blinked and the tears were gone. Along with anything else. His expression closed in half-a-heartbeat.

“You’re in love with me.”

She stated it matter-of-factly. He didn’t deny it. But neither did he confirm it.

He simply sat. Watching her.

“But that’s good, because I’m in love with you too.”

He blinked.

“And I have a proposal to make. About the Blacklist. And how much more effectively we could eliminate these targets, if we weren’t working within the confines of…FBI protocol.”

Raymond Reddington grinned slowly and leaned forward.


End file.
